Snow and Metal
by Once Upon a Pairing
Summary: The Soldier has given himself his own mission after the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and is making his own plans. But he does have moments, inbetween, to think. These are those thoughts. Listed as complete, but updated sporadically.
1. Gunshot

p dir="ltr" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 15.8003997802734px;"The Soldier's trained hands moved over the cold metal of the sniper rifle, muscle memory taking over as he carefully aimed the weapon, his flesh hand lingering on the trigger, waiting for the right moment. He doesn't remember such things making him guilty or angry anymore. He is recalling many things, from before, but they are small, little things and from during the war. He does not know what to do with those memories, but he knows he is no longer their weapon anymore but he is not Bucky Barnes. He is just simply the Soldier./p  
>p dir="ltr" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 15.8003997802734px;"He doesn't hesitate or flinch when he pulls the trigger. The sound of gunshot is familiar, almost An assassin's lullabyem. It was all he was used to- all he knew. With only memories of war, of violence, it was difficult to imagine life as anything else. To just try to quietly assimilate. Vaguely, somewhere in his mind, he knows it'd be so hard. That he was really so, so fucked up right now. But he was choosing to push those things away, away until he completed his first (and only) mission he had assigned to himself… It was their fault he was this way. They'd hurt so many people, too. So, for the first time in his life, he was doing something right. He was killing people who actually deserved it. He was their greatest asset, their successful little experiment. And now he was their worst enemy./p  
>p dir="ltr" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 15.8003997802734px;"Karma was a bitch. He's not sure where he heard those words, but they fit somehow.p  
>p dir="ltr" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 15.8003997802734px;"The Soldier doesn't make a sound as he quickly packs up his (admittedly stolen) weapon. He could leave no trails to be followed, after all, and it wasn't like he had any money at this point. It doesn't matter. He won't be using the rifle for much longer, anyway, he thinks, flexing the mechanical arm admissively. Though it's built for the cold, it's been long since he's had maintenance, or, god forbid, some lubricant for smoother movements. He can feel it's already starting to take a toll on the false limb, the wrong gears moving or some just not at all… and that ache, that ache that was always there, the ache that lingered where metal met flesh and bone, was worsening. The Soldier did not know why, but he couldn't muse on it for too long, because thinking was badbadbad. He wasn't allowed to think. Thinking like that got him in trouble. He was just supposed to go through his assignments like always… and that's what he was doing. Completing what he started.p  
>p dir="ltr" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 15.8003997802734px;"This is his last mission, the Soldier knows.p  
>p dir="ltr" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 15.8003997802734px;"After he eliminates them, all the enemy, every last follower of HYDRA, he will be all that is left. The remainder of what was once a powerful antagonist in the story of his pitiful existence. Without orders, without something to contribute in this world… He was just a broken soldier. A broken soldier, who couldn't even dream of fixing himself, and who would attempt, to fix him, even think about it, when he was like this? It was just better if he stopped breathing. It was better, because in the end he was just a weapon, a puppet that had gone where the strings pulled… and no one could ever really change that.p  
>p dir="ltr" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 15.8003997802734px;"He shoved thick gloves over his mismatched hands and fingers and snatched what seemed to be an instrument case (only he knew the truth) and left the abandoned building he'd taken residence in behind. His eyes narrowed slightly as he joined the crows of joyful adults once again. This was a festival, and no one really cared where he'd come from just a moment before. They were too busy having fun. They wouldn't know about the assassination of their senator for a while yet. He'd be two states away before they even thought to look where he was now.p  
>p dir="ltr" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 15.8003997802734px;"Despite the waves of talking and laughter, the Soldier didn't speak a word. He was never one for talking, at least since he had ceased being Bucky Barnes and became the Winter Soldier. Besides, it was best no one really saw him, really remembered him at all. Fading into nothingness was a skill very essential for the business he was in…. or used to be in.p  
>p dir="ltr" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 15.8003997802734px;"Well, he better get out of here, he mused, and then there was the challenge of finding somewhere to sleep, maybe something to eat. He only needed four hours of sleep, with the modified serum, but it wasn't the best when one was on the run and in hiding. He needed many times the amount of food than the normal, average man, and next to nothing (a meal at a homeless shelter every once in a while) wasn't doing him well at all. But he'd survived on less… He'd be okay. He'd be fine until he completed his mission and out a bullet in his own head… ending this hell once and for all.p 


	2. Cold

p dir="ltr" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 15.8003997802734px;"The Soldier didn't like the cold; it reminded him of things, of so much, of those people and the deepest sleep, of waking and blood and murder, and then that sleep again. He hated it. The cold may have been the only time he was at peace, but it was because of the cold that he was their little toy soldier for so long. It was because of the cold that his very existence had been debatable, that he was just a fairy tale to so many until he emerged from the shadows, and on HYDRA's orders, killed and attempted to kill. But, could he honestly wish away these skills and mindset he'd been taught...?/p  
>p dir="ltr" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 15.8003997802734px;"It was the very same things he was using to take them out, after all.p  
>p dir="ltr" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 15.8003997802734px;"Still, he shivered. He was not happy, even if he was taking out the people that had ruined his life. But, the Soldier knew, he did not deserve happiness after all the pain he had caused to so many people. Someone who'd only reaped sorrow deserved only that… the same hurt he'd caused others. But, the loneliness was deep and breaking, cruel. So hard to deal with, so difficult, and yet he had no choice to deal with it, completely alone. He was a traitor to his country, even if not by choice, a fugitive in this strange new world he barely knew how to navigate.p  
>p dir="ltr" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 15.8003997802734px;"But he would, because he had no choice anymore. He'd never had a choice in any of this.p  
>p dir="ltr" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 15.8003997802734px;"Such things weren't what the Soldier wished to think about, however. So instead, he concentrated on making himself as small as possible, conserving heat as much as he physically could. The cold sunk in his bones, weighing him down. He didn't like this... And the fact his metal arm was barely working didn't make anything easier... He'd tried his best to keep it maintained, but with what little he knew about it, how it worked and everything else, there wasn't really much he could do. Those words tasted sour in his mouth, and that feeling of helplessness rose once more. But, it wasn't like he wasn't used to that emotion. It was funny... He may have been a dangerous, super-powered assassin, but was no longer in control of his own destiny. Attaining his strength, he'd lost the right to do what he wanted with it. 'There's nothing he could do.'p  
>p dir="ltr" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 15.8003997802734px;"Hopelessness.p  
>p dir="ltr" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 15.8003997802734px;"Hope was for people who actually had a future. Hope was for people who hadn't committed so many crimes. Hope was for people who weren't him. That's just how it was. It's hard to be optimistic with what he had gone through, with what he had done. He couldn't take that back. The Soldier couldn't make that right. But he'd clean up what was left... Both his own and the 'mess' left from the organization that had brainwashed, tortured, and used him. That was something he could do. That was something he could through to repent for what he had done... leave something other than destruction in his wake.p  
>p dir="ltr" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 15.8003997802734px;"His jaw clenched, and the man stood, tugging his hood over his features and glancing at his feet, hands shoved in his pockets (metal one best he could).p  
>p dir="ltr" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 15.8003997802734px;"emNever forget your mission. Always complete it no matter what.em The words beaten into him again and again rang through his mind seemingly randomly, over and over like a broken record player, and his fists clenched./p  
>p dir="ltr" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 15.8003997802734px;"emI fully intend to... Get ready... Because I'm coming after you, you shadows, hiding behind men like cowards.em/p  
>p dir="ltr" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 15.8003997802734px;"emAnd there's nothing you can do to stop me.em/p 


End file.
